Endelwyne

Only Gods survive the fall of Empires

The PCs start their journey and catch up to a Caravan

Narrative

After their battle with the Gnolls the PCs head back to the with Marsus and Brill. It takes nearly a day and half to make it back and the PCs are exhausted. Marsus let’s them know that he will have horses and traveling gear for them at the High Tower Tavern in Gravel Creek in the morning, but he will leave them to their own for the evening.

With what little treasure they have the PCs return to the Pub, where Harlac is not overly pleased to see them. He seems to especially dislike Copper.

Turok notices a few elves in the corner of the pub. He wanders over to meet them and have a very uncomfortable interaction. They seem even more off putting than typical elves and they challenge him for traveling with “one of them” referring to Red Feather. They also ask him if he has “felt it yet” and when he says no, they explain that he will.

The PCs sleep at the Horse. In the morning they wake to an empty tavern and travel across Gravel Creek. They eat breakfast at a cart that makes delicious sausage sandwich and then meet Marsus and Brill at the High Tower Tavern.

Marsus has completely outfitted their expedition and they leave immediately.

Traveling east, they leave Gravel Creek behind and make quick pace on the wide and well maintained Caravan road. They landscape is grassy scrub land, with the great peaks of the First Range towering behind them in the west. It is early spring, so peppered across the landscape are wild flowers of every color.

Marsus pushes the pace, and after a few days of travel the finally catch up to the tail end of the last Caravan that passed through Gravel Creek.

The Caravan is massive. It stretches down the road for over three miles, and is nearly a 100 yards across. The Caravan (like all the Caravans that cross the the Continent) is made up of great carts and wagons, some as large as buildings, pulled by all manner of creatures, from horse, to oxen to Elasomers, a huge hairy beast from the plains, that pulls the greatest of the carts. Some of the cart wheels are thicker than a man and taller than the PCs on their horses.

The heroes follow Marsus to the front of the Caravan where a two story ornate wagon leads the caravan. Sentries stand on small balconies all around the great wagon. Marsus hails one and asks to speak with the Caravan master. The sentry blows him off but explains that as long as they stay out of trouble they can travel with the caravan. Marsus and brill head out to take care of some business and leave the PCs to explore the caravans for themselves.

He asks them to meet back for dinner at the Blue Lantern Tavern.

They are in awe of the massive size of the wagons. Some have wheels twice as tall as their horses. Throughout the caravan are smaller wagons as well and all manner of people and culture. They notice a wagon guarded by Xia Gian Warriors from the eastern empires. They are dressed in dark maroon robes and carry spears tipped with steel blades surrounded by a nest of absorbent strings.

While wandering through camp an Elasomer breaks stumbles right in front of them and breaks free from its harness. In its panic it turns and starts racing backwards through the line of wagons. The Heroes immediately race to help. Calling on his Druid affinity for nature Zook is able to get the beast to calm down while Red Feather was able to steer it away from the wagons and out to the open plains where it was recaptured by some guards on horseback.

As night falls the Caravan comes to a stop. The Caravan converts to a village as the wagons roll to a stop. Some of the nicer wagons are lowered off their axles through complex wenches and levers and lower to the ground. Walls slide open, awnings fold out and lanterns are light. The two story wagons become taverns and lodges. Small wagons become street vendors cooking meat skewers and bowls of steaming broth and vegetables.

Zook and Red Feather are drawn into a large drinking hall where the crowd all wants to hear the story of the halfling and the giant native human. Sharesen and Turok are approached by a man wearing a strange loose hood with a symbol on it like flowing water.

They go to with the stranger to an area out in the plains. They quickly find one of the many gullies and follow it out into the dark. In an area of the gully that widens into an area big enough to hold them a crowd of 15 people have gathered. They surround a make shift alter and and a priestess that has already begun a ceremony. She calls on Aurel and holds a small stone above her head with the same symbol on it that the follower was wearing on his hood.

From the stone a slow single drop of water falls into the bowl on the alter. The priestess continues her incantation and a few more drops fall into the bowl. The followers gather in a circle, each wearing their hood to hide their faces. Each takes a sip from the bowl. As it is passed around Turok gets a bad feeling and when the water touches his lips rejects an almost magical impulse to drink. Sharesen sips when it reaches his lips. He is suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of security and strength like he has never experienced. After the bowl circulates the followers quickly disperse into the night.

Turok and Sharesen return to the caravan and despite hunting around for the rest of the evening are not able to find any clues about the followers of Aurel, nor can they find the priestess. They do find the Blue Lantern tavern and share a meal with Marsus and Brill. His great sizes still fits within the large wagon, turned tavern. Red Feather and Zook make their coming late after having dined with their new friends.

In the morning the heroes head out from the caravan. With a short detour at a exotic pet shop, where Zook tried to purchase or barter for a strange looking cat like animal with spikes all over its back.

They travel quickly, leaving the caravan behind. It takes another three days but they finally make there way to the top of the great escarpment that looks out over the plains. The escarpment is nearly three miles tall, so high that the characters can’t see directly down into the plains below. It is so tall that looking left and right give the impression of the entire world simply ending.

Marsus leads them at sun down to an outlook and points out Elves Reach and the Great Pass. Elves Reach is a large feature of the escarpment that juts out into the plains and was the location where the Elves made their stand to stop the Horde invading the mountains. From the high point they showered the Horde arm with spells, arrows and catapults until they broke and the refugees were able to flee to safety.

As the sun sets they look out over the great plains, a sea of grass and shadows stretching leagues across the world.

DM’s Corner

This adventure was planned to help teach the players how to open role play. I wanted to show them the Caravans, as these are the primary reason why the world exists and the cities are in the mountains, it was important to show them early. I wanted to give them the opportunity to explore, trade, etc. but had a few adventures planned to help move things along as well.

The scene with Aurel will be a running plot going forward, as Sharesen’s failure to resist to the water will lead to problems for him in the future.

The geography is so important to the overall world that I wanted to highlight it to the players as well. The early adventures won’t happen in the mountains, which is the really the exciting area of the world, so I wanted to show them how large the world is and leave them with a feeling of wanting to come back. Ending the adventure on the edge of the world, looking down into the plains turned out to be a great way to do that.

Introductions and Battles

First Adventure Night

The PCs meet outside the town of Gravel Creek at a local pub. The The Three Legged Horse Pub is run down, but the food is surprisingly good. Its managed by Half-Orc named Harlac. The four PCs meet and introduce themselves.

Turok, is an Elven Illusionist from a far off land. He explains that he is traveling to increase trade for his people and has trinkets to sell and trade.

Sharasen, is a Halfling Illusionist has always been a lone traveler, but is now interested in traveling the world with a party for mutual benefit.

Zook Timbers is a Gnome Druid, who was in town to only gather supplies to return back to his hermitage. And had just come into the Three Legged Horse to have some lunch.

Finally, a native human named Red Feather introduced himself to the group. He was traveling through town looking for work, after having to survive in the wilds on his own after his tribe was killed by a terrible bear attack.

While the group gathers to eat Copper suddenly get quite irritable. Then he suddenly starts shaking his head like he is fighting some urge. Breaking to the outside will, he growls and bolts from the pub.

The companions leave to follow, running into a man in fine black leather armor who has a Minotaur bodyguard. The man in black armor tell the PCs they better catch their dog, as all the dogs in town have been going crazy and are getting lost in the hills outside of town.

After a fervent chase, the PCs loose Copper in the bustling market streets.

After returning to the Three Legged Horse, tired and concerned about Copper they meet the man and his Minotaur again. He introduces himself as Marsus and his companion as Brill. Marsus explains that he is putting together a party of adventurer’s and one of the things he is interested in is the way the dogs in town have been acting. If the PC’s can travel out to the wild lands outside of town and discover what is going on with the dogs, he would considered hiring them for his adventuring party. He gives them a map and marks the area where he thinks all the dogs have been escaping too.

The PCs agree and head out of town. Using the clue from the direction Copper was running and the map from Marsus, they head south east. The pass quickly out of the more settled areas of Gravel Creek and into the refugee areas on the outside of town. The journey takes nearly a full day of walking. The refugees are from the great Horde War nearly three generations ago. The people are living in small hovels with subsistence farms. They are the descendants of those people that fled the Horde and made it safely to the mountains, but didn’t have the means to move farther west.

The PCs notice that many of the hovels and shacks seem to have reinforced their windows and doors with makeshift boards and even garden tools.

Inquiring about it, one of the farmers explains that they have heard strange, horrible noises in the broken lands south of the settlements. He also says some of the dogs have run away in that direction. A few of the farmers on the far outskirts have gone missing.

Traveling on the PCs stop for the night. In the morning they leave the impoverished farms behind and travel into unsettled lands.

About mid morning they encounter their first enemies. Three creatures are hiding in the tall grass just in front of them. The creatures leap out and attack. A terrible battle begins, with wizards using their fire bolts and Red Feather falling two of the enemies with his tomahawks, which he wields one in each hand. The creatures look like half man / half dogs and Turok recognizes them as Gnolls. After killing all three, the group travels farther south.

The group travels into the broken lands. Great juts of rock crack through the surface of grass lands creating difficult terrain for the PCs to travel through. Sharasen sends his hawk ahead for scouting and sees the Gnoll camp. They have set up between two of these craggy rock spires. He also sees that they have dug cages into the sides of the soft sandstone rock.

In the middle of camp is a strange woven stick artifact. it looks like an X with the top covered.

The PCs use the scouting to build a strategy and attack the camp from two sides. The battle is difficult. At one point a Gnoll jams one of his spears into Turok, bringing him to the verge of death. Red Feather charged up one of the rock ridges to attack a Gnoll that was firing arrows down into his companions. Red Feather made quick work of the sniper with his deadly two handed tomahawks. Zook used his Druid powers to save Turok’s life, while Sharesen used a combination of magic and arrow to support his friends. In the end, the PCs were victorous, killing all the gnolls and finding a hungry but otherwise unhurt Copper.

At the end of the battle Marsus and Brill emerge from one of the nearby gullys. Marsus brings water and is excited that the PCs were able to discover the secret and defeat the Gnolls.

Marsus explains that he is on a journey to the former capital of the Assarisan empire. He wants to go to the Totem Garden and see if the rumor that all the totems the Assarisans had collected were destroyed during the war. His concern is that the totems were destroyed, which would have freed all the Totem-Gods into the world, but without worshipers. If the Totem-Gods are free then the world is in grave danger.

The presence of the Gnolls, and the apparent totem in the center of their camp is concerning to Marsus. He offers the PCs to join him, they can keep whatever treasury they find along the way and he will help pay their way as they travel. The PCs agree and head back to Gravel Creek, but several of the PCs express concern over Marsus’ honesty.